Tools for activating valves in water lines, fuel lines, sewer lines, or the like, are used widely in the public utility field to operate a valve or other control components of conduits and pipelines located below ground level.
Typically, the tool may be required to operate a valve at considerable distance from or out of arm's reach of the workman or user, depending on the depth of the conduit beneath ground level. The workman will normally remain above ground level while extending the tool down through a manhole cover or like access hole into an access shaft to operate the valve remotely with the end of the tool.
One problem encountered with such tools is that a public utility workman sent to the site of a valve that must be operated on may not know at what depth below ground level he will find the valve when he arrives at the site giving access to the conduit. In such cases a public utility workman may be provided with a number of complete tools of different lengths, to deal with conduits at different depths. Furthermore, it may be found that the valve requires a socket with non-standard dimensions. In such a case, non-standard tools may have to be provided to the workman to cater for such an eventuality. These instances present the disadvantage of the cost and inconvenience of providing and maintaining a number of tools to meet with different conditions at an access point to a conduit valve.
Thus, a need exists in the art for a tool for actuating a valve of fluid lines buried below ground level that is easy to manufacture, easy to assemble, and which provides the user with a variable configuration for different conditions encountered in the field at an access shaft. These and other advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description thereof and the accompanying exemplary drawings.